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Two Programs I am Seeking

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J-Mac:
I am looking for two particular applications.  One is a general timer/stopwatch/countdown application, similar to Timer/Timer Pro from Acute Software.  I do use Instant Boss and Stopwatch from our own coders here, along with a couple of other time and reminder-related utilities, but it's just too many to perform very related tasks. I am hoping for one to do a number of things.

The second application is a bit more involved: a program that can insert auto-text based on typed shortcuts. Something similar to MS Word's Auto-Text feature.  I used to use Pocomail as my email client and it has a feature that I used for repetitive phrases in my email messages. You create a phrase and then give it a shortcut. For example, I used "zbr" for "Best Regards" followed by a comma and two line breaks, for a closing in email messages. Blackberry has a similar feature for use on their devices.  BTW, I use the letter "Z" as a lead for most of my shortcuts only because it is unlikely that I would be typing a regular word and have the combination of "z" followed by the initials of the phrase I am shortcutting.  Thus the "zbr" for "Best Regards".

There is a program that is somewhat useful but too annoying overall to use, IMO. It is called PhraseExpress, but it pops up replacement suggestions while you are typing - as I said that can get a little annoying. Also, it has a number of built-in keyboard shortcuts that I definitely did not want, but they insist and instruct you to shut down all other programs that have any keyboard shortcuts so there won't be any conflicts. I really hate when a developer hard codes crap like this and then insists that you must live with it. I decided not to. A good example of how annoying this can be: a few months back I posted here about the Windows+S shortcut that OneNote 2007 uses for clipping suddenly started putting my PC to sleep - literally! Anytime I tried to clip something the PC immediately went dark without warning. The only clue was that I could see the white "progress"-type bar that looked like when my notebook PC was about to hibernate start across the bottom of the screen for a fraction of a second before all went dark. As I said, the developer said, basically, "Tough" and told me to either remove all other apps with KB shortcuts, or shut them down anytime I was running his programs. Yeah, right.

Anyway, does anyone have suggestions for the above two programs?

Thanks.

Jim

mitzevo:
For your 2nd question, did you try DirectAccess ? Or how about Jitbit's AutoText

J-Mac:
For your 2nd question, did you try DirectAccess ? Or how about Jitbit's AutoText
-mitzevo (December 27, 2007, 11:21 PM)
--- End quote ---

Thanks for those mitzevo!

I was looking at Direct Access already but for some odd reason I had not yet come across Auto Text.  (And with that name you'd think the searches would have put that right up there)

Are you using either? I'm hoping for some positive feedback before I do my usual thing and just install them all one by one!  (No wonder my registry is the size of a medium state, like Illinois!)

Thanks.

Jim

lanux128:
J-Mac: for your 2nd question, check out this thread for some useful suggestions..

• IDEA: predictive text for ms word

J-Mac:
J-Mac: for your 2nd question, check out this thread for some useful suggestions..

• IDEA: predictive text for ms word
-lanux128 (December 28, 2007, 12:19 AM)
--- End quote ---

lanux, I found a nice, little app on one of the threads you listed. YadaBytes SubText. Tiny, portable, and it works just like a Blackberry. Pretty cool! I'm using that now! It doesn't have a lot of features, but that was the problem with a lot of these; they have so many other features that they end up interfering where I don't need them!

Thanks.

Jim

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